Had anyone told Cornelia Jones that she would one day own a house, let alone on Junius Street in Brooklyn's notorious Brownsville district, she would have laughed. The average price for decent housing in adjoining neighborhoods is $80,000, far above what her husband Melvin, a package loader with United Parcel Service, could swing on a salary of just under $30,000. Moreover, Junius Street was a wasteland of vandalized buildings and rubble-strewn vacant lots, not even a place "that I wanted my car to break down in," says Jones, 48. Yet in August 1984 the Joneses and their two children moved from...
Building From The Bottom Up
Developers try new approaches to solve the housing crisis
Subscriber content preview.
or
Log-In
To continue reading:
or
Log-In